The present invention is related to a system and method for wireless voice messaging and, in particular, to a system and method for enabling mobile phone users to receive, compose or reply to electronic mail messages with embedded voice messages.
Wireless technologies have exploded over the past few years and the convergence of complementary technologies, such as hand-held computing, have made wireless communication devices quite powerful. Wireless devices include, but are not limited to, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, hand-held computers, laptop computers, and the like.
Presently, wireless device users can access their web-based electronic mail accounts via their wireless devices. For example, a mobile phone user, who has a Yahoo web-based mail account, can access and receive the text of the e-mails in their Yahoo mail account. These present systems also enable the wireless device user to respond to such e-mails. To do this, however, the user typically must use the archaic triple-tapping method or other inefficient and time consuming methods, such as using xe2x80x9ccannedxe2x80x9d messages or T9 technology. In some instances, the user may be able to connect a keyboard to the wireless devicexe2x80x94as is the case with some personal digital assistants (PDAs) that are capable of accessing the Internet wirelessly, such as WAP-enabled PDAs. However, many-users choose to or need to access their e-mail accounts, while traveling or during a commute to and from their workplace. Thus, using keyboards is not a practical solution to the problem.
Thus, due to the present inefficient methods for composing e-mail messages on one""s wireless device, users have not widely used these messaging systems and mobile phones or other wireless devices have been used predominantly for electronic message retrieval.
Generally speaking, exemplary embodiments of the present invention enable mobile phone users to reply to electronic mail (referred to herein as xe2x80x9cemailxe2x80x9d) or create and send email that includes a voice message. By eliminating the need to key-in replies to email, the wireless device user can more efficiently access and use their POP, IMAP, or other type of email account when away from the home or office computer.
According to an exemplary embodiment, a method of transmitting a voice message to an electronic address, generally includes establishing a data connection between a first server system of a voice messaging system and a wireless device so as to enable a user to access an email account. The user will be presented with the option to reply to or forward existing emails with a voice message or compose new voice messages. Once the user chooses a particular option, the server system attempts to capture a wireless device identifier from the user""s wireless device. If no wireless device identifier, then the user is prompted to input and transmit his/her wireless telephone number. If the wireless device identifier is captured, the server system accesses an association of the wireless device identifier to the users wireless telephone number to retrieve the wireless telephone number. A first mapping of the user""s wireless telephone number to a recipient electronic address is then stored on a database system in communication with the first server system. The recipient electronic address is associated with either a message retrieved by the user from the user""s electronic mail account or inputted by the user through the wireless device.
Once the user has completed addressing the message, a call is initiated from the wireless device to a second server system of the voice messaging system. Preferably, using caller id, the second server system captures the user""s wireless telephone number of the wireless device. Where a digital communication connection is present, the second server may instead retrieve a wireless device identifier. The second server system can then retrieve the stored recipient electronic address using the captured telephone number. Next, the user is prompted to record a voice message and an electronic message including a link to the voice message is generated and transmitted to the recipient electronic address stored in the first database system.
Thus, wireless devices that are both voice and data capable, such as WAP-enabled and J2ME enabled devices, enable a user to record a voice message in response to an e-mailxe2x80x94in place of the more traditional typed response.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description, considered in conjunction with the accompanying system schematics and flow diagrams. It is understood, however, that the drawings, which are not to scale, are designed solely for the purpose of illustration and not as a definition of the limits of the invention, for which reference should be made to the appended claims.